mends them both for their
style and matter. He wrote against the Encratites, and other heretics,
and pointed out, as St. Jerom testifies,[2] from what philosophical sect
each heresy derived its errors. The last of these works was against the
Montanists and their pretended prophets, who began to appear in Phrygia
about the year 171. But nothing rendered his name so illustrious, as his
noble apology for the Christian religion, which he addressed to the
emperor Marcus Aurelius, about the year 175, soon after the miraculous
victory that prince had obtained over the Quadi by the prayers of the
Christians, of which the saint made mention.

Marcus Aurelius having long attempted, without success, to subdue the
Germans by his generals, resolved in the thirteenth year of his reign,
and of Christ 171, to lead a powerful army against them. He was beyond
the Danube, (for Germany was extended much further eastward than it is
at present,) when the Quadi, a people inhabiting that tract now called
Moravia, surrounded him in a very disadvantageous situation, so that
there was no possibility that either he or his army could escape out of
their hands, or subsist long where they were, for want of water. The
twelfth legion, called the Melitine, from a town of that name in
Armenia, where it had been quartered a long time, was chiefly composed
of Christians. These, when the army was drawn up, but languid and
perishing with thirst, fell upon their knees, "as we are accustomed to
do at prayer," says Eusebius, and poured forth earnest supplications to
God in this public extremity of their state and emperor, though hitherto
he had been a persecutor of their religion. The strangeness of the sight
surprised the enemies, who had more reason to be astonished at the
event; for all on a sudden the sky was darkened with clouds, and a thick
rain showered down with impetuosity just as the Barbarians had assailed
the Roman camp. The Romans fought and drank at the same time, catching
the rain, as it fell, in their helmets, and often swallowing it mingled
with blood. Though by this means exceedingly refreshed, the Germans were
much too strong for them; but the storm being driven by a violent wind
upon their faces, and accompanied with dreadful flashes of lightning,
and loud thunder, the Germans were deprived of their sight, beaten down
to the ground, and terrified to such a degree, that they were entirely
routed and put to flight. Both heathen and Christian wr